An Atheist Christmas

Hey guys! So yeah, I don't know how many people read this or saw my last post, but those who do are aware by now that I'm an atheist. In fact, this Christmas is my fourth Christmas as a non-theist. A lot of people wonder what Christmas is like for atheists. Many other people assume what Christmas is like for atheists—the season just wouldn't be complete without Facebook posts and forwarded emails about how the evil atheists are trying to destroy Christmas by getting rid of nativity scenes in front of courthouses and forcing people to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” There's a war on Christmas, didn't you know?

I'm not going to pretend that there aren't some nutty atheists out there, although I've never met any (online or in real life). But most atheists in the western world actually enjoy and participate in Christmas. You may also be surprised to learn that most atheists object to the commercialism and materialism that accompanies the season just as much as any Christian. These misconceptions stem from the fact that Christmas is undeniably a religious holiday, at least in origin. How could an atheist enjoy that? The answer is complex and varies from individual to individual, but the root of the answer is that Christians don't own Christmas.

This is a pretty brazen assumption on its face. It's called Christmas, after all! Christ's mass! We celebrate Jesus's birth on Christmas! Hold on just one minute, though. Let's talk about the history of Christmas. You probably know that winter celebrations and holidays were around long before Christianity was a thing. Most of our modern Christmas traditions aren't Christian in origin at all, but are repurposed pagan traditions. During the middle ages, one way the Christian church (the Catholic church really, but at the time that was the same thing) spread its beliefs to the heathens was through an age-old process called syncretism. Syncretism is essentially the process where one religious group assimilates the traditions of another religious group, often under a new name. A great example of this is the incorporation of the Greek pantheon into the Roman religion—Zeus became Jupiter, Aphrodite became Venus, and so on. The same thing happened with Catholicism and various pagan traditions. Saturnalia, Yule, Solstice, and other celebrations became Christmas in the Christian tradition. Christians simply did what countless other religious traditions had done before them, and adopted and adapted the conventions of other groups to fit their own system. Over time, Christians adopted the traditions of those groups and incorporated them into their own holiday, giving new meaning to those traditions.

My point in describing this is to demonstrate that saying that Christ is the reason for Christmas makes very little sense when you consider the history of the holiday. If Christianity never existed, we would still probably celebrate some kind of winter festival today. In fact, if Christmas really had originated as a celebration of Christ's birth, assuming such a thing happened and assuming that the Biblical account is accurate, we would be celebrating it in the springtime, not the wintertime.

Despite all this, of course, Christmas does have a long Christian tradition and is heavily imbued with Christian meaning—which is exactly what you'd expect from a syncretically adopted holiday, but that doesn't change the cultural and religious importance of Christmas to modern Christians. But to say that only Christians can derive any significant meaning from the holiday ignores the very origins of that holiday. Sometimes I wonder if the Roman pagans complained about Christianity's co-opting of Saturnalia in much the same fashion that Christians complain about atheists having their own spin on the holiday.

So, back to the original topic: atheists and Christmas. What does Christmas actually mean to me? As an atheist, obviously the message of “Jesus is born, yay!” doesn't mean a whole lot to me. But many of the traditional messages of Christmas still have meaning for me. “Peace on earth, good will to men (and women)” is a sentiment that I think everyone, regardless of religious beliefs, can get behind. I like the traditions of Christmas—spending time with family, giving gifts and making treats. I like the decorations and the music. In fact, I generally prefer religious Christmas music to tunes like “Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer”, which generally annoy me. At its root, both today and throughout its various incarnations in various cultures and religions, Christmas is a winter festival, and I enjoy that aspect of it. Perhaps most importantly, celebrating Christmas as an atheist has forced me to think through and articulate to myself the meaning of the holiday in my own life, which is always a useful endeavor. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living, and perhaps the unexamined holiday is not worth celebrating. 

Merry Christmas!

An explanation

Three years ago I started college at BYU-Idaho. I was ridiculously excited--I began counting down the days from the moment I received my acceptance letter. A lot has happened since then. I have been counting down the days to graduation since I had more than 500 days left. Some of you reading this blog may have known me before I started school. Others of you may have met me during my time there. Naturally, a lot has changed in that time. I don't think anyone goes away to college or moves away from home without changing somewhat, and I'm no exception. I've learned to think in ways that I'm not used to thinking. I've been exposed to new ideas and met new people. Most of all, I've learned what it means to think for myself. Those of you who know me well know that I feel compelled to question anything and everything. Sometimes I do it purely to enjoy a good debate, and sometimes I'm being serious. I'm not always the most tactful person when it comes to debate, I'm afraid, but I think that I've learned how to be tactful when it is necessary. At least, I try to be tactful when it is necessary. That is what I am trying to do here.

During my first year of college, I spent a lot of time reading, praying, and thinking, and after what I can only describe as the most difficult time in my life, I came to the conclusion that I cannot muster any sort of belief in any sort of deity. I assure you, this is not a decision that I made lightly. The day when I first allowed myself to face my doubt was the most frightening of my life. The day when I finally let go of my futile search for rational reasons to believe in the supernatural was one of the most freeing. I'll try not to bore you or offend you with excessive details as to the reasons behind my decision. But at the very least I will try to help some of you understand, if I can, that I gave my decision the time and consideration that it deserved.

In the fall of 2009, sometime in October, I began having serious doubts about the truth of the LDS church. I'd put a lot of issues on the shelf over the years, and when I mustered the courage to face them, I found a lot more than I bargained for. Eventually, it came to a head. Late one night in my dorm at BYU-I, I realized that I couldn't believe in the church any longer. It was frightening, and over the next several months I went through a very difficult but very rewarding period of questioning and exploration. I spent a lot of time praying during this time. I spent many hours late at night locked in the bathroom, praying and crying and wishing for an answer. I did everything I was supposed to, everything that I had been taught that would bring answers. I waited for an answer, for some sort of resolution, some reason to believe. It never came.

The last time I prayed, really prayed, is one of my clearest memories. It was about two years ago now. I had been struggling for months with my doubt. I was emotionally and intellectually ripped apart and I needed to find some measure of closure. I couldn't do it anymore. I walked up the hill to the Rexburg temple and sat on the grass for several hours. I watched the sun go down and the stars come out. I prayed, cried, and thought for all of that time. I don't know what I was expecting, to be honest. But whatever I was expecting, nothing happened. After a few hours went by I looked up at the sky and thought, I've done everything I can. I've prayed. I've read. I've thought. I've waited. I have to let this go. If I'm going to be honest, then I have to admit that I do not and cannot believe. And that's okay.

I'm painfully aware that most, if not all, of you will find reasons to judge me and to rationalize my experiences. But in the end, they are mine, and I have found my peace. I cannot describe how wonderful it is to be free of constant cognotive dissonance. I don't expect anyone to agree with me or my decisions, and frankly everyone is free to make of them what they will. My purpose in writing this blog post is not to justify myself. It's just that I've spent a very long time pretending to be something that I am not and to believe things that I do not, and I'm tired of pretending. This is who I am. I am finally being honest with others as well as myself.

I am a graduate of BYU-Idaho, and I am an atheist.

Thoughts on Failure

I failed a class in college. Accounting 333: Advanced Spreadsheet Applications. It was basically a class on how to program for Excel in Microsoft VBA. Funnily enough, I liked the class. I liked programming. I failed for a lot of reasons. The biggest one was probably my own laziness--I took the class during my second-to-last semester and was getting burned out. I didn't work as hard or as effectively as I did for my first six semesters. I had other issues as well--I was coming out of a rather nasty bout of depression (I got on meds about a month or so into the semester). Not only was I sick of school in general, I hated my school.

Even so, failing a class was a heavy blow for me. I was used to As with the occasional B. Seriously, the worst grade I'd ever gotten in my life was a B. You can imagine the shock. It was a hit to the ego as well as the GPA. I retook the class the next semester (and passed, thank the FSM). But I did learn some things.

First, I learned that there are some things in life that I do have to put lots of time into. Learning has come pretty easily to me most of my life, and I was accustomed to being able to BS an A or a B if I didn't like the subject matter. I wasn't able to do that with Accounting 333. I had to work at it.

Second, I learned that failing doesn't make you a failure. The thing that failing does do is show the kind of person you are by your reaction to it. What did I learn about myself? I learned that I'm a perfectionist. ("This F is a black mark on my LIFE!" ) I learned that I needed to quit being a lazy bum. And I learned that things that you think are the end of the world, really aren't the end of the world. Really. Most of the time.

Thirdly, I learned that I need to apply the generosity I give others to myself as well. I've had friends and roommates who failed classes, and I always told them, "that sucks. It's okay though. Sometimes it takes a couple tries to get something right; it doesn't mean you're dumb. Just try again." But I didn't apply that to myself. That was actually pretty arrogant of me. What, other people might need more time to learn things, but I don't? Shut up, former self. You're full of it.

Finally, I learned that I needed to stop basing so much of my self-worth on my accomplishments. It was something I did subconsciously, and it was an easy thing to do because a lot of stuff came easily to me. But it doesn't say much about me if I'm good at things that come easily to me, does it?

In the end, failing Accounting 333 was a good thing for me. I learned some things that I might not have, had I passed the class with flying colors. Humility is a hard lesson to learn, and I still suck at it sometimes, but it's important.

Update: Life

I haven't posted in a long time, and I haven't written an actual "blog post" in an even longer time. I've been busy. This blog has a total of eight followers, most of whom I'm not actually in touch with anymore. However, I'm going to try to update reasonably often.

Highlights: I graduated from BYU-Idaho last month. That was SUPER exciting. I also got engaged. It's officially announced as of last week. This is also SUPER exciting. I'm looking for a job. This is not so exciting. I've started going to the gym. This is moderately exciting. I've also come out of the closet as an atheist. This has also been exciting, although perhaps not as fun.

Recent topics of thought: Politics. Obviously. I'll keep it brief, but let's just say I'm not terribly impressed with Paul Ryan or the recent Todd Akin scandal. Seems like these things just keep on coming.

Reading. My post-graduation reading list consists primarily of fiction, because I'm pretty much intellectually worn out on nonfiction. I'll be reading George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire Series and Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy for starters. After that maybe I'll poke my head into some other genres.

Wedding. Wedding planning is a monster. Seriously, why is everything so expensive? I seriously want to elope.

That'll do for now. I'll probably update again sometime soon, when I think of something interesting to say.

Blue Lips and Overmen: Regina Spektor and the Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche

The following is a paper that I wrote about a year ago for my Modern Philosophy class. The assignment was to pick one of the philosophers that we had studied that semester and apply his thought to a musician, movie, TV show, or other element of popular culture. I was going through my old files and read through it again, and liked it enough to post it here.

Blue Lips and Overmen: Regina Spektor and the Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche

Philosophy 202              Winter 2011

The music of Regina Spektor, like that of many modern artists, has a decidedly existential character. Her pieces describe the experiences of a single individual, sometimes named, more often not. Oftentimes the individual is an unnamed “I,” which contributes to the existential character of the song and can create an almost solipsistic mood. Spektor's work tends to be abstract and ambiguous, especially in its references to religion.

One example of this existential character is Spektor's piece entitled “Man of a Thousand Faces.” The song starts off describing a very small moment of the man's experience—he is sitting at a table, eating a lump of sugar, and looking at the moon.

Now he sits down at the table

right next to the window

and begins his quiet ascension

without anyone’s sturdy instruction

to a place that no religion

has found a path to or a likeness¹

This particular piece seems to imply a rejection of religion, in the character of Friedrich Nietzsche's assertion that “God is dead.”² The man's meditation takes him to a place where religion cannot reach. Nietzsche asserts that religion is limiting, and that it keeps people from reaching their true potential. In Thus Spake Zarathustra, he writes of priests: “Pretty intellects and comprehensive souls these herdsmen had: but my brethren, what small territories hitherto have been even the most comprehensive souls!”³ For Nietzsche, religion prescribes the territory of the soul. It limits it. And in Spektor's piece The Man of a Thousand Faces, the unnamed man has released himself from these bonds and killed God. He goes to a place “where no religion has found a path to, or a likeness.” For Nietzsche, God is dead because he is no longer relevant to the way people structure their lives. The man of a thousand faces does not find religion relevant to his quiet ascension. He has, in the existentialist sense, realized himself and become an Overman—one who is himself, who is his own. An Overman, Bernd Magnus says, is “the nonspecific representation, the undetermined embodiment if you will, of a certain attitude toward life and the world—the attitude which finds them worthy of infinite repetition.”⁴ To be an Overman is to fully realize yourself in such a way that you would want to live your life all over again without alteration.

Another of Spektor's songs, Blue Lips, has more existential imagery which can be interpreted as describing the development of an Overman. The protagonist of this piece is, yet again, an unnamed “he.” He starts off by meeting faith—

He stumbled into faith and thought

God, this is all there is?

The pictures in his mind arose

And began to breathe

And all the gods and all the worlds

Began colliding on a backdrop of blue⁵

The man finds faith, and he finds it insufficient. It is not enough for him—is this all there is? His own mind begins to take over, and he begins to create his world for himself. And for Nietzsche, this is philosophy. Philosophy is autobiography. In Beyond Good and Evil, he writes: “It has gradually become clear to me what every philosophy up till now has consisted of—namely, the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography.”⁶ Further, Nietzsche believes that philosophy is not motivated by the will to know, but to be, to have power, to control the world and make it one's own.⁷ Another excerpt from Blue Lips says,

And all the people hurried fast, real fast

And no one ever smiled.

. . .

And no one saw and no one heard

They just followed the lead

. . .

They started off beneath the knowledge tree

And they chopped it down to make white picket fences

And marching along the railroad tracks

They smiled real wide for the camera lens

As they made it past the enemy lines

Just to become enslaved in the assembly lines⁸

This can be interpreted to be a description of how Nietzsche viewed the world of people in general. Most people are not Overmen—that is, people who are fully themselves and have realized their will to power. Most people are followers, underlings—or, to use Spektor's imagery, assembly line slaves. This is because becoming an Overman is not easy. It requires being hard on oneself; it requires the sacrifice of security. The “they” in the song are not willing to do this. They chop down the knowledge tree and use it to construct white picket fences—fitting representations of the traditional morality that the Overman rejects and goes beyond. They think they are happy, they think they have achieved fulfillment, when in reality they are slaves. They have not realized themselves.

The “he” in the piece however—he becomes an Overman. As the people around him become mindless, unrealized drones, the pictures in his mind awake, and “begin to breed.” His will to power and autobiographical philosophy grow to their full potential, and the song ends with the refrain:

Blue lips, blue veins

Blue, the color of our planet

From far, far away

Blue, the most human color

Blue lips, blue veins

Blue, the color of our planet

From far, far away⁹

Why is blue “the most human color”? Blue is a color we associate with cold, but it is also a color that means life. From space, Earth looks blue because of its water, and water is necessary for life. Without water—without the color blue—there is no humanity, and no Overman. If to become an Overman is to fully realize one's humanity, then it is fitting that blue should be the most human color.

One last example will serve to examine the Nietzschean existentialism that runs throughout Spektor's work. In this piece, entitled “Two Birds,” two birds are sitting on a wire and one wants to fly away, while the other stays safely on the wire. Here again we see a contrast between an Overman and an unrealized person.

Two birds on a wire

One tries to fly away

And the other

Watches him close

From that wire

He says he wants to as well

But he is a liar

Two birds on a wire

One says come on

And the other says

I'm tired

Two birds of a feather

Say that they're always

Gonna stay together

But one's never goin' to

Let go of that wire

He says that he will

But he's just a liar

Two birds on a wire

One tries to fly away

And the other . . . ¹⁰

Here, the first bird is exploring himself and becoming an Overman, but the other is afraid. He does not want to leave his safe, comfortable existence. The piece ends in the middle of a sentence, without saying what exactly it is that the second bird does in the end. The listener, however, can assume that this bird never does fly away like the other one. He watches the first bird closely, perhaps wishing to fly away, but he makes excuses: “I'm tired.”

Throughout Regina Spektor's body of work, a recurring theme is that of the Overman. Some characters in her pieces sometimes explore themselves and find that they have entered, or perhaps created, a world of depth and beauty where they are fully themselves. Other characters remain stagnant, refusing to grow and fully realize themselves. They sacrifice the knowledge tree for a white picket fence, or they choose to remain safely sitting on a wire. Spektor invites listeners to look inside themselves and examine their lives. Which are you—the bird on the wire, or the one that flies?

Bibliography

Lyrics.time: A Lyrics Website. http://www.lyricstime.com/. Accessed April 2, 2011.

Magnus, Bernd. “Perfectibility and Attitude in Nietzsche's 'Übermensch'.” The Review of Metaphysics 36, no. 3 (March 1983): 633-659.

Nietzsche, Friedich. Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by Helen Zimmern. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1907.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None. Translated by Alexander Tille. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1908.

        Endnotes

1 Lyrics.time: A Lyrics Web Site, “Man of a Thousand Faces,” http://www.lyricstime.com/regina-spektor-man-of-a-thousand-faces-lyrics.html, accessed April 2, 2011.

2 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, trans. Alexander Tille (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1908), 118.

3 Ibid., 121.

4 Bernd Magnus, “Perfectibility and Attitude in Nietzsche's 'Übermensch,'” The Review of Metaphysics 36, no. 3 (March 1983), 643.

5 Lyrics.time: A Lyrics Website, “Blue Lips,” http://www.lyricstime.com/regina-spektor-blue-lips-lyrics.html, accessed April 2, 2011.

6 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Helen Zimmern (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1907), 6-7.

7 Ibid., 7-8.

8 Lyricstime, “Blue Lips”

9 Ibid.

10 Lyricstime: A Lyrics Website, “Two Birds,” http://www.lyricstime.com/regina-spektor-two-birds-lyrics.html, accessed April 2, 2011.

Passion and Obligation

In my experience, there are two ways of doing most things: the easy way and the hard way. And when I say "easy," I don't mean "unchallenging." But here's the thing--when you care about something, it's a lot easier to do it. I'll give an example. Last semester, my favorite class was History 380: US Constitutional History and Law. I love law, especially the philosophy of law. I find it fascinating and very relevant. The class was supposed to be one of the most difficult offered by the history department, and in a sense it was--it required consistent effort and intellectual rigor on my part. It wasn't a class that one could just breeze through. It was challenging. But I didn't find the class all that hard, because I loved every minute of it.

And that's the difference. When you are passionate about something, it's not hard to get yourself to do it. But I find that when I don't care about something, I can't get myself to do it--at least not very easily. I have to talk myself into it, bribe myself (if I do this one assignment, then after I finish I'll do Constitutional Law homework!), and trick myself into doing it. But when I'm passionate about the work, even though it's work, the work is its own reward. I want to do it. I enjoy the challenge and the intellectual stimulation of it.

That's all well and good. But one of the things I'm trying to teach myself is how to become passionate about things that aren't particularly thrilling to me at first blush. For example, this semester I am taking a senior seminar course on what amounts to economic history in the 18th and 19th centuries. That's not exactly my favorite field of history. I like intellectual history, and observing how human thought and ideas affect the course of human events. The development of the Britain's industries and transportation infrastructure simply doesn't sing to me in the way that, say, Renaissance humanism does. So, in internet terms--wat do?

The answer, for me at least, seems to be that I need to find connections between what I have to do and what I love to do. When I do everything that I do out of a sense of obligation, I eventually become unhappy, bored, and stressed. I procrastinate, wear myself out by cramming at the last minute, and then don't retain anything. I need to find a way to become passionate about the things that I have to do anyway. So I have to learn about the development of industrial infrastructure in the 18th and 19th century. How does that development affect the way people view themselves and their surroundings? How do people react to these changes? And how did those reactions, in turn, shape the course of the Industrial Revolution?

I find that when I learn this way, I retain things much better. There are two reasons for this, I think. Firstly, and most obviously, it's a lot easier to remember something if you actually care about it. Secondly, learning through connections is a lot easier than learning through straight memorization. For example, in my constitutional law class last semester, I had to memorize relevant Supreme Court cases and their precedents, significance, and relevant details. That's a lot to memorize, and I did have to do some of it by rote--I made flashcards and drilled them. But more importantly, I also made connections. Most people know about Brown v. Board of Education, for example. Why? Probably because they're familiar with the stories of the civil rights movement, both before and after that landmark case. Brown v. Board is part of a larger network of concepts that includes Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., freedom riders, bus boycotts, and "I Have a Dream." All these things appeal to the emotions as well as the mind. We care about civil rights and racial equality. Things weren't always that way, of course--that's why the civil rights movement existed in the first place. And we're certainly not a post-racial society yet. But most people recognize that people have equal rights regardless of race, and the idea that a fellow human being might be forced to go to a lower-quality school (for example) because of something as irrelevant as the color of their skin is repugnant to us. So we tie the events of the civil rights movement together in an interconnected set of stories--the mention of one aspect of civil rights triggers a whole set of associations. This is a lot more meaningful than just memorizing, "Brown v. Board, 1954, mandated racial integration in public schools." Learning by association is much more effective than learning by memorization.

I notice this especially when I do essay exams. If I'm taking the exam on something that I've mainly learned through rote memorization, I don't do as well. I rattle off facts without much meaning behind them. But when I've learned through associations, I'm able to make sense of the big picture and its significance, and I do much better because I don't just know the facts--I know why they're important. And besides, that's a much more fun way to learn.